Rock Art of Pachmarhi Biosphere (Mesolithic to Historic Times)

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One of the largest concentrations of painted rock shelters in the country is found in the Pachmarhi Hills in the folds of the Satpura ranges. These hills are full of rock shelters, many of them large and painted. Ecologically, the location of the Pachmarhi hills is quite suitable with large shelters, dense forest, water sources and high overhangs of rocks with honeycombs. The subject matter of the Pachmarhi paintings is rich and varied. A variety of cultural (dance and music), religious (rites), domestic (copulation, relaxation and recreation) and economic (collection of honey, food, fishing, hunting and transportation of loads) activities are shown in the paintings of earlier periods. The drawings of later periods show soldiers, fighters, riders and head hunters. Human figures (3449) account for all art activities. These figures represent different age groups. Twenty-five animal species totalling up to 2008 figures, include big cats, elephants, deer, antelopes, reptiles and insects. Sometimes fowl and peafowl have also been depicted. Brahmi and Nagri Script were found in Pachmarhi..

Dr. Meenakshi Pathak is known for her immense passion for the ancient rock art in India and all over the world. India has one of the major concentrations of this amazing cultural heritage which is also her field of study. She was awarded a Doctorate under the National Fellowship of University Grants Commission of India for her study on Pre-Historic Rock Paintings of Pachmarhi hills'. She continued to further explore and document the Pachmarhi rock art in M.P. (India) and discovered many rock art shelters in the wilderness of Satpura National Park. She has protected many rock art sites in the Satpura National Park with the support of the Forest Department of M.P.

Her explorations of rock art were not confined only to the pictographs of Pachmarhi and other parts of Central India. She has seized the opportunity of discovering certain petroglyph sites in the Leh-Laddakh region in the state of Jammu and Kashmir in North India and she explored and documented a number of them. She has set up a petroglyph park named "Trishul Petroglyph Park" with the help of the Indian Army at Karu about 30km from Leh on the Leh-Manali road. It has become one of the spots frequented by tourists. She brought her findings to public knowledge through print and electronic media, in numerous professional journals and she made presentations in many seminars in India and abroad.

Her objectives in the public domain are to popularise the art and to work for its preservation. She has voluntarily conducted many workshops for children and for students of arts, educating them about motivation, heritage value and the need of preservation of the rock art.

She is also an artist and specialized in reproducing rock art. She thus worked with oil, acrylic and water colours on canvas, bark, glass and posters. She has held many solo exhibitions in many parts of India as well as abroad: Kathmandu (1988), Ujjain (1989), Milano, Italy (1990), Bhopal (1991), Pune (1992), Shillong (1995), Jodhpur (1998), Pachmarhi (2000) and Agra (2004), Ranchi (2005), Mathura (2006), Delhi (2007), Sukhana (2008), Rewa (2009), Tarascon, France (2010), Paris, France (2011), Valladolid, Spain (2011), Cologne, Germany (2011), Bhopal (2011), Delhi (2012).

Pachmarhi falls within the Pipariya Sub-Division and Tehsil of Hoshangabad district in Madhaya Pradesh. The town is on the Pipariya Pachmarhi road, at a distance of about 55 kms from Tahsil Headquarters. The town of Pachmarhi is located at 22° 29' North and 78° 30' East and is situated at an elevation of 3717 feet above sea level. Regular bus services are available from Bhopal to Pachmarhi, a distance of about 211 kms. Pipariya railway station on the Itarsi-Jabalpur branch of the Central Railway is the nearest railway station to Pachmarhi. Most trains halt here for the convenience of the tourists. Pipariya is at a distance of about 915 kms from Delhi, 830 kms from Bombay, 1360 kms from Kolkata and 1475 kms from Chennai by railway.

From popular belief, the name Pachmarhi is a derivation of Panch-Marhi or a complex of five caves/dwellings of the Pandava (Five) brothers. As the legend goes, the Pandav brothers during their exile wandered all over the country and are supposed to have spent a considerable portion of their lifetime in exile incognito in this area. Some inscriptions and some engraved motifs can be seen in the Pandav caves. The total area of the plateau is about 60 square kilometers including the forest area and 12.90 square kilometers occupied by the Pachmarhi Cantonment.

Pachmarhi in the Satpura ranges in Central India is known as the verdant jewel of the Hills and Queen of Satpura in tourist jargon and as a place where nature has found exquisite expressions in a myriad enchanting ways. The green shade and gentle murmur of flowing water are enough to steal the hearts of many. A benign walk into the deep recess of the foliage-laden forest with the fragrance of wild flowers and fresh air around is a heavenly pleasure. The fascinating glimpses of beautiful birds chirping in the forest attracted the attention of the late Dr. Salim Ali, the famous ornithologist, who could not resist the temptation of visiting this wonderland of nature. The wildlife of Pachmarhi is varied from Sambar to Tiger and one needs to go 15-20kms deep into the forest to get a glimpse of these animals. The forests of Pachmarhi are known as a botanist's paradise since they possess many rare species of plants and flowers.

The first mention of Pachmarhi with full details is available in a book "The Highlands of Central India" authored by Captain J. Forsyth. in 1889, who discovered this place and established a sanatorium in 1862. The Korku Jagirdars (landlords) occupied the plateau when he arrived there. Relatively few visitors to Pachmarhi are aware that in the vicinity of the plateau exist a large number of caves and rock shelters of great archaeological interest, containing as they do, numerous rock paintings executed by tribes who lived in them in the distant past. Though many have known the existence of these paintings it was only in 1940s, that they received the attention that they actually deserve. Lt. Col. and Mrs Gordon discovered the painted shelters and thereafter Mr and Mrs Hunter did the first ever exhaustive work at some sites from an archaeological point of view.

The author, Dr Meenakshi, has introduced the landscape and mindscape of rock art in Pachmarhi hills in Madhya Pradesh in a comparative, historical and ethno archaeological perspective. She does this in the light of pioneering geological, archaeological studies of rock art in Pachmarhi and the rest of the world.

She describes the soft, laminated bedding planes of the sandstone hills of Satpura, encircled by Denwa and Sonbhadra, as a habitat, theatre, gallery for a ceaseless, uninterrupted artistic activity of the Korku and Gond tribal people. In her sensitive, empathetic description, the continuities and convergences between the older rock art and present tribal life and art have come alive. Places like Sambhar Jheel, Nimbubhoj, Baniya Berry, Eshan Shring. Khari Lane, Barki Bundal, Lashkariya Khoh, Handi Khoh, deities like Maradeo and Mahadeo are associated in this account with folklore, rituals and ceremonials. The rock art reminds the author of the continuing hunting gathering practices of local tribals, including fishing and gathering of honey. Shamanistic sorcery, practiced by their Parihar and Bhumka priests to propitiate or exorcise evil; dances, executed in a circle, with musical instruments; paintings in vegetable colours, executed on walls of clay tile, wattle daub huts; carvings of horse riders, carried out on wooden memorial boards, called Gathas; worship of mother goddesses, trees and serpents; claims to be created by Mahadeo from ant hill clay; ritual of sacrificing human beings, till the late 19th century, to Kali and Kal Bhairav, by hurling them down from Mahadeo hills.

Captain J. Forsyth's report read: "Everywhere the massive group of trees and park like scenery strikes the eye and the greenery of glades and wild flowers, unseen at lower elevation, maintains the illusion that the scene is a bit out of our temperate zone". Thereafter, a multitude of beauty spots were discovered, and the place developed. Much remains the same even today and Pachmarhi has retained its tranquillity, its silences, its gentle green and its soothing forest. It is a place where solitude is miraculously achieved in moments, and the sighs of swaying trees are the only sounds you will hear. Pachmarhi is a lovely hill girded plateau on the green Satpura range, called by the tourists the "Queen of Satpura." (M.P. Tourists 1962: 4). Pachmarhi, the legend tells, was once a huge lake guarded by a monstrous serpent that began terrorizing the pilgrims visiting the sacred shrines in the Mahadeo hills. Lord Shiva, angered by this, hurled his trident at the snake, imprisoning him in the rift of a solid rock, which assumed the shape of a pot or handi, the flames of wrath dried up the lake and the empty space assumed the shape of a saucer. Botanists have reported the existence of plants only found on the sides of large expanses of water, which seems to confirm the myth! (M.P. Tourist 74:2).

The hills are thickly vegetated and rich in flora and fauna but they are quite widespread and difficult to access. Rock paintings in the numerous shelters here are the major sources of our understanding of how their creators related to their physical. biological and cultural environments. These people, as do their descendants at the present time, held beliefs and practices, which expressed a direct or indirect relationship between their environment and themselves.

G. R. Hunter brought the painted rock shelters of the Pachmarhi Hills to the notice of D.-H. Gordon (1958). Hunter had excavated some sites in 1932 and again in 1934-35. The 1935 excavation revealed that the cultural sequence within this region commenced during the Mesolithic period, confirming that the Pachmarhi Hills had not been occupied during the Palaeolithic. Thus, the rock paintings of this region. must belong to the Mesolithic and later periods.

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